Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Turns Out to Be a Impressive First-Person Perspective.
Hold on — were you aware it's possible to experience Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, your surprise matches as I was upon finding out this concealed mode. Allow me to temporarily abandon overseeing my civilization, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and go for a joyride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
In its role as a city-builder, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates using a top-down camera. But, should you input a hidden code — including “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you can explore the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to test it in the latest installment, though I was uncertain it would operate until I found myself submerged in a structural glitch (likely not meant to happen — this mode is somewhat unstable occasionally).
Discovering the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the busy roads through my metropolis and visited markets, breweries, flower fields, and seafood collectors — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts using an entirely new viewpoint. I noticed a variety of intricacies that would escape notice when viewing from overhead: Entryway ornaments, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, chickens running loose, citizens lounging on their terraces… Merely examining the form of a ledge and the paint layers on a column proves fascinating to modern individuals unfamiliar with ancient life.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I became extraordinarily excited the moment I learned that I could not just look upon crop lands, but also access them. And although I’d assumed the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto earthen quarries, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building during active classes, and even trespass into people’s gardens. Avoid attempting to open doors (not even the developers have the budget for that), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, observe people digging and transporting bags, and glance into any tiny hut when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and periodic inhabitants sitting in a bench instead of on a bench, first-person mode looks much better than expected. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) shouldn't logically be this impressive in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You won't necessarily notice separate follicular elements, however, you can observe wall inscriptions, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and also a lot less scary relative to the previous game, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons anymore.
Experimentation and Customization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and adjusting the view — the last option enabling me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then experimented with certain numeric keys and discovered that I could change my avatar's look. Golden robe? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, harming inhabitants is impossible (though I didn't test this, obviously).
Comedy and Population Encounters
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the first-person view, I heard a parent advising their offspring that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Understandable stance, father character. A pleasant regional Celt then started applauding my outstanding integration methods by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Repeat that statement, and your disappearance will be permanent.”
The Thrill of Transportation
Just as I assumed I uncovered all possible content within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding across historical settings. Totally unintentionally, I clicked on a wagon and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey cart, in particular, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine open-world vehicular chaos — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Fighting Restrictions
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, only to be ignored completely. The close-up view remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their arms flailing about, seemed enormously rewarding, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
